Despite the fact that I had found so many problems
within Natural Breaks I was still convinced that it probably was one of the
best companies in the UK. The reason for
that was Jan, a real people person, even though she had once been a
social worker. Richard, the new boss of
NWCS was an accountant, he had been working for one of those big companies you
always hear about on the news. He had
one hell of a reputation and was considered to be one of the top men in learning
disabilities. This was no surprise to me;
the best pilot in the air force had been George Lee, an Irish fellow, so why
should the same logic not apply to learning disabilities?
For the first time in my life I think I had a
career plan. After two to three successful
years as a team leader you would be in a position to apply for the position of
service manager. A service manager would
manage six or seven team leaders and their teams. I told myself that within one
year I would be back at Natural Breaks as a service manager. It really was nice not having to come in to
work and face violence, or at least spend the thirty minute drive to work wondering
if the day was to be spent cage fighting or having a nice walk. Of course I still didn’t know what the two
new fellows I would be supporting held in store for me. I did have their personal lifestyle plans,
which I read and still couldn’t work out much about them.
The contingent arrived back from Spain and I
sent them all home, I would spend the night in the house with Jimmy, give the
team a break. Jimmy was a sixty year old
gentlemen who could speak, but didn’t.
The house was quite scary, it was huge, three stories with a massive basement covering the whole footprint of the house. I followed the directions in the plan for
Jimmy and got him in to his bed. I then
came downstairs and put my feet up with the television on. I then found myself laughing. It occurred to me that thousands of people
with mental health problems or learning disabilities and sometimes both had
been relocated back into the community where they had the right to enjoy their
lives as they saw fit. But that meant that
about three thousand people in Liverpool, all with learning disabilities or
mental health problems or both, would be getting up at half past eight the
following morning.
The book said that Jimmy liked to get up every
morning at half past eight. No he didn’t,
the shift changed at nine o clock, as every shift in the country did. The person or people being supported were up,
scrubbed, fed and washed and on parade for nine o clock and shift change. The thing is that these sorts of observations
were far too simple to be taken on board by social workers, I hoped that
Richard would be on a similar wavelength as myself. For those of you who have read a good deal of
this blog you know that I have been through some strange and extreme initiation
ceremonies in my time. I wasn’t aware
that Jimmy was waiting with one for me in his bedroom the following morning
when I came to wake him.
I had already noted that Jimmy liked to eat porridge
every morning for breakfast. I had also
noted that none of the staff thought themselves capable of preparing porridge
and a new saucepan was required every two or three days as they kept burning
holes in the one they were using. God
only knows what tasteless rubbish poor Jimmy had been given every morning. A lot was missing from his personal plan, which
rendered the whole thing useless to me.
Sure it was fine knowing that he liked porridge every morning, but it
would have been nice to know, that if a new person was on a night shift with
him, Jimmy would defecate in his bed and then throw it at you when you came in
to wake him. A sort of welcome to my
life routine. He was also autistic and
having pelted you with poo would then jump out of bed and go into each corner
of the room and kick the corner. What didn’t
help is that there would now be a trail of poo around the bedroom like the breadcrumbs
poor old Hansel and Gretel left in the woods.
I knew that this was learned behaviour; I knew
it wasn’t personal; it was a situation that had to be dealt with. You could see why some support staff with
less tolerance, or understanding, than me would react in a different way and stories
of people being put back to bed, as a lesson, would often be heard. In fact I had been told that the previous
team used to lock Jimmy in his room and have drink and drugs parties downstairs
to which the local constabulary were often summoned. I sorted out the immediate
situation and got Jimmy downstairs to have my number two lesson of the day. And yes, the pun was totally intended.
I searched about the kitchen for porridge but couldn’t
find any. There were some boxes of cereal
on top of the cupboards but no porridge.
I called Jimmy in to the kitchen and brought down the cereal packets
from the top of the cupboards. I
apologised to him and explained that there was no porridge but that he could
have cornflakes, or Cocopops, or Weetabix.
Jimmy pointed at the three cereal boxes and said “Porridge.” So his personal living plan was wrong, not to
mention with important information missing, but at least social services had checked
to make sure he had a personal living plan.
Some dipshit social worker had come around seen the actual hard copy of
the plan and determined that Jimmy’s life was perfect. Poor Jimmy had been given burned porridge
every day of his life for God knows how long, not to mention the expense wasted
on saucepans.
I gave Jimmy a large bowl of Weetabix, with
warm milk and sugar, some toast and a nice mug of tea. I sat down opposite him at the breakfast table
and tried to engage him in conversation.
Jimmy would only grunt at me as he shovelled the Weetabix into his
mouth. To me it was a good sign that he
was enjoying it, I was pleased that I had spent the night in the house. I wondered how much more was wrong in his
life but knew that I was the fellow to sort it out. The staff were due in shortly and I would
have to start to get to know them, their abilities and their shortcomings. There is a saying in learning disabilities
that the people providing the support often need support themselves, so I knew
I didn’t have an easy ride in front of me.
I cleared the breakfast table and Jimmy seemed
to be content. I once again sat down opposite
him and tried to engage him in conversation.
I came to what I thought was an eureka moment. Jimmy looked at me and stretched both his
hands out across the table. To me it was
an act of friendship, a sort of thank you, perhaps even an apology for treating
me like a coconut shy that morning, so I reached out to him with both my
hands. Before I knew what he was doing
Jimmy had dug his fingernails into my wrists and had begun to drag his hands
along mine. It was like a cat extending
its claws. He immediately held his hands
under the table and kept saying he was sorry.
My hands were on fire and I began to think through what was in the medial
cabinet. The fecker had drawn blood and
what was worse, was that it was mine.
The first member of staff came in Tony. A black fellow, and I mean a real deep, deep,
black colour, but what made him stand out was his short cropped hair which he
had dyed blonde. Tony laughed at me and explained
that Jimmy always did this to new people, then remembered what he should have told
me the previous day about the welcome gift in the bedroom. I only had a few minutes that I could spend
with Tony as I had to get up to head office for a managers meeting. Richard was calling all of his team leaders
together and it wouldn’t do to be late.
I tided myself up and set of for my first managers meeting.
Richard wanted to get to know us, wanted us to
get to know him and wanted us to get to know each other, in the air force we usually did this by drinking beer.
Normally if I ever met another person from Northern Ireland I would
shake their hand and join in some friendly banter with them. Of course our tribal conditioning would have
loaded questions at the ready so that we could determine what foot they kicked
with, or as you might say what religion they were. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem and
opposites could laugh away their co called differences but sometimes you could meet
a person so stupid that you knew they would cause problems in your life so
there was no point wasting good air getting to know them. Only because they are so stupid and entrenched
in their outdated, bigoted, views that the only cure for their dilemma is extinction
through time.
Richard had us all sit in a large lazy circle and
asked for each of us to stand up and state who our favourite singer and song
was. It was tedious as we moved around
the room, there was no repartee, no craic, then he came to me. 'I don’t have a favourite,' I said. 'But if I had
to I would say that Pavarotti singing Ave Maria would be my favourite song but my
favourite singer would be Shane McGowan from the Pogues.' So I would determine that my favourite song
would have to be Shane McGowan singing Ave Maria. Even a normal person would know that a
combination like that would have the dogs in the street howling but Richard passed
me by. At the end of the meeting Richard
made a bee line for another team leader, Jim.
Jim was like Richard, an ardent, born again, Christian. I could see that there may be two Irishmen in
this company that would be in a position to do some good, but I could also see
that perhaps only one of us would be capable of doing so.
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